Opinion: Water failings a regionwide issue

Pauline Doyle, Guardians of the Aquifer.

It's time all our local councils got back to their core function of providing clean drinking water.

Thanks to an inadequate water monitoring regime thousands of people and businesses in our community are suffering, not just in Havelock North but across the whole Bay. This is the third time Havelock North's town supply has had problems.

This is a regionwide issue, not isolated to Hastings District Council. The Hawke's Bay Regional Council has over-arching responsibility for groundwater supplies for Napier, Hastings and Havelock North and to ensure we can safely drink the water that comes out of the kitchen tap.

The question must be asked: was the HBRC so busy promoting the Ruataniwha dam for farmers in Central Hawke's Bay that it lost sight of securing our town supplies in other areas of the region?

That seems to have been the case in Wairoa with the Waihi Dam disaster at Christmas. The people of Wairoa had their drinking water contaminated due to a lack of oversight by the HBRC.

Apparently regional council staff were aware of the build-up of silt for months before they finally issued Eastland Group with abatement notices, but too late.

The sluice gates were blocked by silt and the system seized up. The abatement notices failed to avert the pollution of drinking water.

Councillor Rick Barker called for an internal investigation on the handling of that issue.

What has happened to that investigation? Surely it wasn't just a PR exercise by the HBRC designed to stem the public anger?

The good news is that the Hastings District Council has been pro-active in protecting our town supplies from potential contamination, not from bacteria but from oil exploration. You can't drink water with oil or gas in it, not to mention fracking chemicals.

In 2014 consent was granted to Endeavour Energy to start drilling beside the airport in Napier for 55km back up into the water catchment area which is the source of most of the Heretaunga plains groundwater aquifers.

Hastings District Council organised a one-day public symposium on oil and gas exploration where we heard the oil industry and Taranaki Regional Council extol the virtues of petroleum exploration for the local economy. We also heard the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment warning us that "Hawke's Bay is not Taranaki - you have different geology, there is higher seismic risk, and you are dependent on the underground aquifers".

Lawrence Yule chaired that symposium. After listening to all the discussion the mayor admitted that previously he had thought oil exploration might be good for the local economy, but at the end of the day he had serious doubts. And the Hastings District Council was listening to the community.

HDC carried out a comprehensive public consultation process and the council has completed necessary changes to its District Plan to prohibit oil and gas drilling over the unconfined part of the Heretaunga aquifer.

But at the HBRC it seems that no one is listening. The current Regional Resource Management Plan treats drilling for oil the same as drilling for water: the public don't get told.

Just three months ago the HBRC granted consent to TAG Oil for exploratory drilling in southern Hawke's Bay.

Our two most important aquifers are both overlaid by oil exploration permits. The Ruataniwha aquifer and the Heretaunga aquifer are the lifeblood of our community.

Our local economy earns $6.5 billion a year and most of that is thanks to the Heretaunga aquifer system.

Without clean water for drinking and irrigation we wouldn't have a vibrant local economy - we'd have a dust bowl.

You would expect the HBRC to be worried but, on the technical advice of a former employee of TAG Oil, council staff recently recommended a "do nothing" approach for the next few years.

Some councillors, however, do not accept that advice. On August 3 councillors Rex Graham and Tom Belford tried to get things back on track with their proposal that the council commit to a plan change to prohibit oil and gas drilling in Hawke's Bay water catchments.

But they were blind-sided by councillors Christine Scott, Alan Dick, Debbie Hewitt and chairman Fenton Wilson so now we await the outcome of council elections on October 8.

The Hastings plan change cost about $15,000. On the other hand, the HBRC has so far spent about $55,000 investigating whether we need a regional plan change. How much of that money went to the consultant to the HBRC who told it the Regional Plan is "adequate"?

Questions need to be asked about the way the Hawke's Bay Regional Council is managing water, whether it be the Havelock North town supply, or cleaning up the pollution in the Tukituki River [Plan Change 6], or safeguarding our water catchments from oil exploration.

Last election the Hawke's Bay Today organised a great debate for candidates for the Regional Council.

Bring it on! We want to know who to vote for on October 8.

- Ken Keys and Pauline Doyle are the spokespersons for lobby group Guardians of the Aquifer.

- Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz